


Arrhythmia

by Loki_Laufeyson



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 08:18:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loki_Laufeyson/pseuds/Loki_Laufeyson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft wasn't always lonely. </p><p> </p><p>Before Harry was an Equerry and Mycroft the British Government. The ship itself is incidental, this is about Mycroft (and love).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arrhythmia

**Author's Note:**

> My undying love goes to my beta and star Ari 
> 
> Mycroft and Harry are in their mid-twenties.

“The bloody cheek! Can you believe it? So I said to him- I told him-“

Mycroft lets the voice fade out to a pleasant hum in his periphery and joins the sycophantic chorus of laughter at the appropriate moment. Networking is a necessary evil and one in which Mycroft Holmes excels. That doesn’t make it fun. People are frightfully easy to please.

“Excuse me gentlemen, I think I’ll grab a drink.” Mycroft tips his head ingratiatingly, all too glad to escape the conversation.

He’ll need something strong and bitter to make it through the night.

He waits at the bar, watching as the host’s wife assails a hapless guest about the draperies. As amusing as the floundering is, Mycroft decides to rescue the poor man because the floppy haired, ginger, square jaw look is a bit pretty (though distinctly Etonian) and Mycroft is awfully bored.

“Oh Mrs. Spencer, I do believe your husband was looking for you.” Mycroft prompts, smirking at the man from over her head. The relief in his eyes as she potters off is palpable.

“Mycroft Holmes.”

He offers a hand.

“Harry Prichard.”

 _Harry_ takes the extended hand and squeezes for just that moment too long. It is enough to inform him of the young man’s inclinations.  And because he can’t just _switch it off_ Mycroft also notes from the way he holds himself and his right cuff that he is hiding this sexuality. Mycroft doesn’t believe it is a matter of shame, but rather convenience, their great country not yet seeing fit to allow the lavender to serve in the military.

“The Welsh Guard, eh?”

“Hm?” the young man’s eyes eye his lapel and there is a something of a spark in his eyes at the recognition, (from this alone Mycroft can already tell that the man had joined the military to escape the mundane day to day of a country manor, to experience and instil change, not fawn and flatter at dinners and can’t Mycroft just sympathise with that), “Oh yes, first Battalion. The badge gave it away I suppose.”

That was exactly what ‘gave it away’ but Mycroft is surprised that that is the conclusion the other man immediately came to because, well, it’s _clever_. And people just aren’t clever, not really.

“Not necessarily, it could just show Welsh pride.” Mycroft’s mouth twists into a wry grin, “Or an interest in leaks.”

“Yes, indeed. Or at least it might if I hadn’t just seen you speaking to my superiors.”

“You’re a sharp one.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I _am._ ”

* * *

Their paths cross again at another sparkly event with its dull people.

He watches Harry who, by now, he knows is too kind and a terrible liar. Mycroft knows these to be faults, weaknesses, but finds him oddly charming all the same. This opposite of his. He makes for amusing viewing at the very least, amongst a company of ruthless liars.

“Mr Holmes.” Harry smiles when he eyes his spectator, “It’s a pleasure to see you.”

Mycroft extends that hand again.

“The pleasure is mine, I assure you.”

It’s the truth. Absolute.

* * *

Harry seems immune to his attempts at flattery.

“It’s just not what I go in for.” He shrugs when pressed about his disinterest, “Not that you aren't dreadfully charming.”

When he winks Mycroft can’t help but feel flushed.

(It seems the same cannot be said for Mycroft)

How plebeian.

* * *

The first time they fuck occurs how Mycroft imagines all sexually repressed upper middle class people must; with nought but the obscene sound of flesh on flesh and absolutely no eye contact.

It’s ridiculous and messy in way that is not entirely unpleasant and Mycroft finds himself thinking that he might like to do it again.

He lights up afterwards, dirty mug a makeshift ashtray, and the smoke curls from freckled shoulders like he’s burning through his skin. He watches Harry tidy himself the foot of the bed. There is something undeniably erotic about watching a man dress. It’s the fingers, Mycroft concedes- fastening buttons, threading the tie, stretching the braces over broad shoulders.

“Shall I see you again, Mr Holmes?” The formality is not a tease but a genuine sign of respect.

It is terribly endearing.

“I should think so.”

* * *

He begins to hide behind Mycroft at gatherings, watching, he calls it learning (“You use your face like a weapon.” Harry likes to whisper sometimes, a little frightened, in the white noise between party guests. And Mycroft just smiles back politely, laugh rattling from his throat like gun fire) and Mycroft finds he enjoys the furtive brushing of the back of hands and sides of thighs too much to tell him off.

Mycroft has an arsenal of smiles. They can be nauseating or sharp or becoming or sultry or kind. _Come closer_ , they might say. _Why yes, I’m single. How bloody hilarious. You are absolutely the most captivating person in the room right now._   And on and on and every one of them a lie.

And somewhere along the way, Harry becomes privy to the only smile that is true.

* * *

The photos around the flat tell Mycroft that Harry loves his family, and is loved in return. There is a trophy, for the horse his sister rides, and military memorabilia from a Welsh father. And though Harry chose the military for himself, this precise path is not his own, he’d do anything to please his tad. A reader, there are too many books for a flat this small. He’s bright, but he lacks common sense and confidence. Harry both misses the countryside and is bored of it all at once. He gets up at six am without fail. He is infallibly kind. Polite to his core. Coffee drinker. Royalist. There are two greyhounds back at home that he adores.

Whilst he wasn’t paying attention, smoking and dressing transformed to something like post coital bliss.

Harry lays his head on Mycroft’s chest after the act and runs his fingers through wispy, ginger chest hairs. Sometimes he’ll press the pads of his fingers into the constellation of freckles and laugh at the frown Mycroft gives for his troubles.

He’s quite a simple creature, this bedfellow of Mycroft's.

He is utterly ordinary - completely human.

Fantastic.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” Harry sighs.

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

What a fool, he thinks, though to whom he is not sure.

* * *

He calls Mycroft  _darling_  in the small hours of the morning.

* * *

Mycroft learnt long before he had begun networking- as a boy, listening to his father read from the Financial Times broadsheet from his armchair, his throne- that as animals migrate to water, human beings will move to money. 

Harry and Mycroft’s association came about as a result of their interests (in money) overlapping.

But money is a fickle thing.

And, inevitably, their circles begin to separate as it comes to light that there is no longer that common, beneficial factor between their social groups so there is no longer a need to be sociable.

Without the parties and brunches, Mycroft has no reason to continue his (god help him) affair with the young Lieutenant.

It is, after all, nothing more than a business deal. There was… a common factor between them. An itch to scratch, as it were. Harry Prichard was an amusement, sweet for a time but-

There is no reason to continue, Mycroft tells himself.

 

He continues regardless. 

**Author's Note:**

> If people like this I'll carry on, if not... I'll probably still carry on
> 
> but it'd certainly be nice to know!


End file.
